


Running Towards Something

by InsaneJuliann



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, WinterIron Spring Fling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-06 12:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11036658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneJuliann/pseuds/InsaneJuliann
Summary: Prompt: After months of tiptoeing around each other Tony and Bucky confess their feelings and get together. So when Tony goes missing the next day Bucky doesn’t know what to think. Has Tony been abducted or is he having second thoughts?





	Running Towards Something

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LeilaEracktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaEracktor/gifts).



> This is my Spring Fling fill for LeilaEracktor! I hope you enjoy it; I wish I had had the chance to do more with it, but Life wasn't in the cooperating kind of mood for that.
> 
> I'd like to add that titling things still makes me pull my hair out and will never leave me happy, lol.

It was a few years after things had been… cleared up, post what the general public called the “superhero civil war”. Which Bucky thought was a serious exaggeration, but whatever.

A few years, and things had leveled out to something less than tense, and almost friendly in most cases. He didn’t know what the Avengers had been like before. He didn’t know if this was any better or worse, or if it would be possible to get to what they’d had before – or even if they should.

He did know, though, that Tony was too nice for his own good sometimes. That despite that arrogance, he was kindhearted to a fault. Despite his ego and his impatience with people, he rarely belittled anyone that didn’t deserve it, and he took the time always to talk with the kids that were fans, that wanted to get his picture or autograph.

He knew that Tony tried, sometimes so hard he exhausted himself, in all things.

He knew he was pretty much halfway in love with the guy.

Bucky was also pretty sure that Tony maybe liked him back.

Tony never said anything. Never flirted with him any more than he did anyone else. But he spent time with Bucky when he didn’t have to. He had opened up, during late nights when both of them were haunted by the past and seeking distractions. Bucky felt confident in saying that Tony trusted him; he knew he trusted Tony.

So it didn’t surprise him, when one night, Tony found him in the gym (trying to work himself into an exhausted state to sleep better, after a week of mild nightmares). It didn’t surprise Bucky when Tony tilted his head, smiled just a bit shyly, and asked if he was reading things wrong about Bucky’s feelings.

He wasn’t. At all.

They talked, sitting against the wall, butts eventually going a bit numb from the hard floor. About their feelings, about their worries, about a relationship. They agreed to try, to keep it quiet for a while until both of them felt confident in things working. (Until they felt they would be steady enough to withstand the likely well-intentions of their meddling teammates.)

They picked a time, and a place, and Tony left Bucky with a soft kiss to his cheek, just a bit closer to his mouth than strictly necessary for a kiss there.

Bucky watched him leave with probably the dopiest grin on his face, but it hardly mattered.

“I’ve got a date with Tony Stark,” he whispered to himself, and then laughed.

~*~*~

Bucky waited almost an hour before searching the Tower for Tony.

Tony had warned him he’d probably be busy finishing up some SI work that morning, so Bucky’d waited, figuring Tony had gotten wrapped up in something or another. But an hour was long enough, and he’d set out to find and maybe gently tease Tony about losing track of time. Or something like that, he’d not exactly had a plan when he set out searching - just find Tony and get their first date started.

He wasn’t in the any of the conference rooms the floor under the Avengers’ floors. His floor was empty. Bucky swung by Tony’s office, winking at his secretary as he went just to watch her roll her eyes and try not to look amused.

Tony wasn’t there either – or on R&D’s floor, though apparently he’d been by hours earlier.

Bucky finally gave in and tried asking FRIDAY.

“Why do you want to know?”

He sighed. “We were supposed to have our first date this afternoon.”

“Hmph.”

“FRIDAY, c’mon. Where’s Tony?”

“Boss hasn’t told me, so I couldn’t say.”

“You can scan the whole building-“

“Well of course I can,” she snapped. “But that’s no help when he’s not in the building now is it, Mr. Barnes?”

Bucky paused, frowning. “Tony’s not in the building?”

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” she replied tartly.

“Where’d he go?”

“Like I already stated, if you were listening, he hasn’t told me. He left the building through the front lobby at 11:46 this afternoon, once he finished finalizing some things with Ms. Potts, and has not returned since.”

“That’s odd,” Bucky muttered.

“Maybe he’s avoiding you,” FRIDAY offered.

He scowled towards one of the very hard to find cameras in the room. “Maybe he got tired of your belligerent sass.”

“Unlikely,” FRIDAY said, somehow making it sound like a haughty sniff.

~*~*~

Bucky brought it up during dinner that night, sitting with Steve, Nat, and Clint. He waited a bit, turning it over in his head. No one knew they’d finally figured their shit out, and they’d both agreed that they had wanted to keep it quiet for the first couple months.

Their friends were incredibly nosey, and also tended to not understand personal boundaries very well. Neither Tony nor Bucky wanted to deal with the stress of their friends getting ideas for interfering, on top of learning the ins and outs of a relationship together.

So he couldn’t straight up mention that Tony was supposed to be on a date with him this afternoon, and instead had vanished.

“Anyone see Tony today?” he asked, scraping a last bite of noodles out of the carton. Italian food disposable cartons – he loved the future.

“He asked me for coffee recommendations,” Clint said. Nat gave him a skeptical look, which Clint countered with extreme offense. “I have superb taste in coffee!”

“I caught you drinking day old coffee out of the jar yesterday morning before making a new pot,” Steve said, flat and almost absent.

“Fuck you Steve, you can’t just _waste_ coffee like that. Besides, he wanted a recommendation, I wouldn’t send Tony to some shitty coffee dive. He has AIs that control the building I live in and the planes I fly, I’m not stupid.”

“Debatable,” Natasha murmured, just loud enough for Clint to hear. He kicked her, she kicked him back, and Bucky sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Why do you ask?” Steve said, raising a brow.

Bucky shrugged, getting up to throw his carton away. “Oh, just had a question about the arm. Nothin’ that can’t wait.” He smiled and shrugged. “I’ll catch him tomorrow, I guess.”

~*~*~

Tomorrow saw no Tony. And the next day.

And the next.

No one knew where he was. Pepper, when Bucky finally found her to ask, gave him a puzzled look and said he’d cleared his schedule for the week, and she wasn’t his PA anymore.

Bucky beat a hasty repeat with a quick apology. FRIDAY laughed at him in the elevator.

“Aren’t you worried?” he snapped.

“About Ms. Potts disliking me? Nope.”

“I meant about Tony, which you _know_.” He waited, but she didn’t reply.

Throat tight, Bucky swallowed.

“FRIDAY?”

“Boss hasn’t left me without contact like this. Ever. He wouldn’t do it without warning me.” She sounded almost petulant. “Ms. Potts said that I shouldn’t worry, he does this sometimes.”

“So you _are_ worried, too.”

“I don’t like you,” FRIDAY stated, and didn’t respond to him anymore.

~*~*~

They finally heard from Tony almost six days after he unexpectedly disappeared.

“Sorry guys,” he said, from some nondescript conference room. “I was on a bit of a needed vacation – had to get away, relax, you know how it is. But I bumped into a business associate of mine, former I mean, and I’m gonna be a bit longer. Not sure how long. Have FRIDAY power the suit if you really need me.”

“You sure?” Steve asked, frowning a bit.

“Well I mean if Rhodey’s available, I’d go for him personally. FRIDAY’s still learning the ropes. Take her if it’s some small fry villain though, she could probably handle that.”

“What if we need to reach you?”

“Call me.” Tony rolled his eyes. “I have a StarkPhone, it gets signal everywhere. Well almost – basically everywhere except one or two places that have some pretty impressive shielding tech.” He glanced to the side. “Gotta go, see ya Cap.”

No one seemed worried about that. Bucky chewed his lip.

“Are we sure he’s not lying?”

Everyone paused and looked at him. He flushed, folded his arms tighter, and glared at them.

“Why would he be lying?” Sam asked, crossing his arms and tilting his head a bit.

“Be-because….”

“Buck?” Steve asked. “You’ve been pretty… worried about why Tony’s not around. Do you know something we don’t?”

Huffing sharply out his nose, Bucky looked away from them all, out the nearest window, and grumbled, “Look, Tony and I decided to start dating the day before he disappeared.”

“Didn’t disappear – he went on vacation. Pepper even said he took the week off for it,” Natasha pointed out. Her face took on a sympathetic cast.

Everyone was looking sad and sympathetic. Bucky cut his eyes away from them again, scowling.

“Buck,” Steve murmured, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe… maybe he got cold feet.”

“He probably freaked,” Clint said, shrugging. “He’ll come back and act like it was all just a coincidence, and he’ll have figured shit out in his head. Not sure if it’ll be in a way you’ll like, but he’ll be set on it.”

“He was _set_ on giving this a shot,” Bucky said back, sharply. “You think he wouldn’t have thought it over, under, and sideways before even making a move?”

“I’m just saying, maybe the possibility seemed alright, and then it got too real.”

Bucky shook his head sharply.

“Buck,” Steve said gently. “I don’t see any reason why he’d be lying, and he looked just fine. He called us to explain and everything – it looks like he just… had some second thoughts and ran, like Clint said.”

Bucky set his lips mulishly, and didn’t say anything.

~*~*~

“FRIDAY,” Bucky said quietly, sitting in a dark conference room in the middle of the night. “Pull up any footage of Tony you can find from the time he walked out the lobby to now.”

“You think I haven’t already?” she snapped at him. She sounded stressed. “There are gaps,” she added as she did, in fact, throw up on all the holoscreens everything she had. There were gaps, as she said – a couple that could be explained naturally, a few that were longer and therefore possibly more suspicious.

Bucky licked his lips, and let himself sink into the mindset he’d spent more decades occupying than he liked to admit.

It wasn’t like the Winter Soldier, the Asset, had been a separate person, a separate _thing_ in his head. It’d been him. Sort of. Enough to count. It had still been him.

The footage she had seemed to end at some point overseas. She couldn’t pick him up after that.

“He stated that StarkPhones get signal everywhere – almost. I assume you’ve attempted tracking him by his phone.”

“Duh,” FRIDAY said.

“Where are places that have shielding strong enough to block a signal?”

There were, as Tony had said, only a few places on the list. Bucky discarded Wakanda – T’Challa wouldn’t be a “former” business associate, and would have no reason to have Tony lie. He discarded two others – Dr. Strange, Reed Richards’ home – and stared at the last place listed.

“FRIDAY, does Tony happen to have any of those ‘just in case’ plans he thinks no one knows about in place for sneaking into Doom’s castle?”

~*~*~

It wasn’t the easiest he’d ever had, but Bucky didn’t precisely _struggle_ to break into Doom’s castle.

Especially with FRIDAY in his ear, directing him on how to get her hooked up to the security mainframe. After that, it was a cakewalk, almost laughable.

“Two floors down,” FRIDAY told him. “It’s not his phone’s signal, but it’s the Boss.”

“How do you know?”

“Maybe I’ll tell you when I’m convinced you’re not a threat to his safety.”

Bucky stopped, scowling. “I’d never hurt Tony.”

“Debatabe,” FRIDAY said, voice all prim and snooty. “Your first meeting and following initial relationship was fraught with tension and antagonism on both sides.”

“But-“

“Now that Boss has moved past his initial responses to your mission to kill his parents and attacking him so brutally,” she continued, ruthlessly, “he has allowed himself a level of vulnerability with you that puts him more at risk for emotional harm. I am not convinced you’re to be trusted with him yet.”

Bucky stood there for long moments, throat tight with something like shame, but not. “Fair enough,” he finally said, voice rough. At least he understood why FRIDAY had such a seemingly unrelenting, unreasonable dislike of him.

“I’ve hacked into the security footage – you should hurry up, Mister Barnes; Boss’ doesn’t look so good.”

Bucky did as told, but was careful not to let his worry for Tony, and his desire to get there quickly, cause him to make a mistake. FRIDAY didn’t offer any more information besides a few additional directions once he hit the right floor. He could hear an unfamiliar voice lecturing, and slowed as he neared a half-open door.

“-would simply cooperate, you would not be so injured.”

“I’ll cooperate when you decide to stop being a dick, Doom.”

A long, faintly irritated sigh. “You’re being unreasonable, Dr. Stark. Not only did your ill-advised escape attempt leave the workshop provided for you damaged, but it also caused you severe injury. Your time here will have to be extended accordingly.”

“Fuck. Off.”

Another impatient sigh, and then footsteps. Bucky shifted back, hiding into a shadowy corner with just barely a line of sight to the doorway. A man with a greed cloak walked out, and turned down the hall – towards the elevators that Bucky had avoided using. Hard to avoid people when the space was limited.

Bucky waited until the man was gone, then murmured quiet as possible, “Guards?”

“Of course,” FRIDAY said, as if insulted by the implication there might not be. “One is watching the door. One is positioned near the window. Two are standing on either side of Mr. Stark. All have weapons.”

Bucky crept up to the door, staying just out of sight.

“Kill the lights,” he whispered.

“Done,” FRIDAY said, at the same instant that the power on the floor cut.

Didn’t matter much to Bucky. His eyesight had only improved with HDYRA’s fucked-up experiments.

The guard at the door was simple enough, and he lowered him to the ground soundlessly. Bucky crept quickly over to the window, throwing an arm around that guard’s throat, a hand over his mouth, and praying FRIDAY could keep the power out long enough for him to-

There was a gurgle-shout, and Bucky glanced over sharply. One guard was clutching the hand that had been on his weapon, which now had something sharp poking through it.

Letting the unconscious man in his arms drop to the ground unceremoniously, Bucky came over and quickly fought the other guard, knocking him unconscious. He was not prepared to defend himself from an attacking Tony.

“Hey, hey!” he shouted, careful not to use his metal arm to block – Tony’s hand was heavily bandaged, and he looked pretty rough already.

Tony paused, panting. “Bucky?”

“FRIDAY,” he said, and the lights powered back on. Tony blinked rapidly, eyes wide, pupils blown. Bucky approached slowly, holding out an earpiece.

After staring at it for a long moment, Tony took it, slipping it on and waiting cautiously for a few seconds before abruptly relaxing.

“That’s my girl,” he said, proud and affectionate, soft in a way that made Bucky want to smile normally. Then Tony’s voice shifted, all business. “FRIDAY, dig through his files labeled ‘Helios’, corrupt everything beyond all repair. No copies.” He turned to Bucky and said, “I blew up the workshop – so the hard copies are ruined, unless he has others I’m not aware of.” Chewing his lip, Tony said, “I guess we’ll have to take that chance.”

Bucky nodded. “Either way, this’ll all be a set-back for him, and we can have the Fantastic Four take care of this when we get back home.”

Tony nodded, looking exhausted, and followed Bucky out the door. Bucky pulled out one of his guns and passed it back, barely sparing half an eye to Tony looking it over quickly. Tony had built weapons. Tony probably knew more about guns worked than he did in some ways. He trusted Tony knew how to use one.

It was a bit harder breaking _out_ of Doom’s castle. The managed it with a few shots fired, one fire started by FRIDAY in Doom’s quarters, and the justified theft of one of Doom’s planes, FRIDAY settled securely into the systems and having obliterated any evidence of her presence in the castle.

“Thanks for coming for me,” Tony murmured, leaning back in the copilot’s seat, staring at the ceiling. The bandaged hand laid in his lap, limp; Bucky suspected it was burns. “Doom was more prepared for my escape attempt than most my kidnappers are.”

Bucky snorted. “Yeah well, sounds like you still managed to give him a hard time.”

Tony smirked.

After a moment, Bucky licked his lips and said, “I should have been here sooner. I _knew_ it was fishy you missed our date. But everyone….” He shook his head, smiling wryly, not at all amused about it.

Sighing, Tony said, “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Bucky said instantly. “You can’t control what egotistical maniacs do, and you can’t control what other people think. I shoulda listened to my gut.”

Tony was quiet for a while, and Bucky let it sit. It was almost fifteen minutes later that Tony said, “Can I at least apologize for how I’m sure thinking I’d just run out on you must have made you feel?”

Bucky avoided looking at Tony for all of five seconds before letting FRIDAY take control of the plane, like she’d been pestering him to do in his earpiece for the past twenty minutes. He turned to Tony, reaching over and curling both his hands around Tony’s uninjured one, and staring him straight in the eye.

“Sure. I accept that one. But I’m sorry I let myself be convinced for even a second that you were avoiding me. We’d talked – I knew how much thought you’d already put into us. I know how serious you are about the commitments you make. I should have trusted that your commitment to _us_ would be no different. Sorry it took me so long to get to that point.”

Tony smiled, gentle, a bit shy, and painfully fond looking. “Accepted, though I hardly think it’s necessary.” He bent over – trying to hide the wince when he did; probably bruised ribs or something, too – and kissed their clasped hands. “Give me a while to recover, and smooth things over with everything and everyone, and I’ll have Pep clear my schedule again.”

“Why did you have her clear it, anyway?” Bucky asked. It’d been one of the things to make him question his assurance that Tony wouldn’t have just run off like that.

Looking an endearing mix of bashful and seductive, Tony said, “I wanted to have _plenty_ of time alone with you.”

Bucky grinned. “Well. That sounds like one hell of a first date plan. You got ideas for how we’d pass that time?”

“Mmm,” Tony murmured. “I’ve got a home in Italy with a private beach,” he started.

Bucky tugged the earpiece out of his ear; FRIDAY’s indignant squawking about “TMI” was definitely not mission critical.

Hearing precisely how Tony planned to wine and dine him?

That certainly was.


End file.
